Clarksville man charged with abusing horses has case sent to grand jury

CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – A man charged with abusing horses had a hearing Tuesday in General Sessions court where further details were outlined in the case.

Timothy Decent, 62, is charged with two counts of animal cruelty. He was originally charged with aggravated animal cruelty, but the charge was amended by the District Attorney’s Office before the hearing began.

Tuesday, Judge Ray Grimes bound the case over to the Montgomery County grand jury with no additional bond.

On March 11, Clarksville Police Officer David Mann was called to Decent’s Whitfield Drive home to investigate a possible theft of services. Clarksville Department of Electricity workers had found a ladder, an electric box that wasn’t CDE’s, wires and tools on the property.

When Mann arrived, he and a CDE investigator went to the front door of Decent’s trailer to talk to him.

They then discovered the dead foal.

“I saw a small horse hanging from the tree limb,” Mann said. “It looked like it’d been rotting.”

Mann said there were hooks in the horse’s body.

No one was home, and later that day Officer Lisa Reed went to the property. Reed testified that a female horse approached her and was in poor health. She later returned and discovered more horses in poor condition.

She contacted Montgomery County Animal Control and the University of Tennessee’s Agriculture Extension Office to further investigate.

Animal Control Officer Matthew Heaton said one horse was bloated from worms and another looked emaciated.

“The animals needed to see a veterinarian,” Heaton said. “They had medical issues ... if they continued they would have died from parasites, emaciation and malnutrition.”

Decent told investigators the foal died for unknown reasons, and he had hung it up so he could keep the hide, and then he forgot about it, according to a previous report.

“He said he thought what had happened was it had been cold. The mother may have crushed it,” Reed said.

At the time of the visit, there was no hay available, and the only food was corn in a storage trailer not accessible to the horses.

Reed obtained search warrants for Decent’s property. The foal was gone when the search warrant was executed. Officers seized three horses and four chickens.

Reed said they found animal bones on the property.

“There was a spool and it had animal skulls on it. We found animal bones in a bin and a dead deer in the refrigerator,” Reed said.

The Clarksville-Montgomery County Humane Society, Horse Haven of Tennessee, Volunteer Equine Advocates, Willy’s Happy Endings and the Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency were able to care for the horses and other animals, all of which were removed from Decent’s care, the report said.

That was the second time in two years that Decent had been charged with animal cruelty involving his horses.